Computer once meant a person who did computations, but now the term almost universally refers to automated electronic machinery. The first section of this article focuses on modern digital electronic computers and their design, constituent parts, and applications. The second section covers the history of computing. For details on computer architecture, software, and theory, seecomputer science.

Computing basics

The first computers were used primarily for numerical calculations. However, as any information can be numerically encoded, people soon realized that computers are capable of general-purpose information processing. Their capacity to handle ... (100 of 32,727 words)